by Quirinius during his first government, would thus naturally have led to the events recorded in the second chapter of St. Luke.

us

Finally, let me touch upon the argument which has been drawn from the words of the Jews to our Lord recorded in John ii. 20, "Forty and six years was this temple in building." It is assumed that the date of the remark, and therefore of the first Passover in our Lord's ministry, can be ascertained from these words. Josephus tells (Ant., xv. 11, 1) that Herod began to rebuild the temple in the eighteenth year of his reign. Now, if this commenced in B. C. 37, the eighteenth year of it would be B. C. 19, and forty-six years after that would be A.D. 28. The argument in question assumes that the building when commenced went on continuously until at least that year, and that the first Passover of our Lord's ministry can thus be fixed to that date; also that as his baptism by John, when St. Luke tells us that he was about thirty years of age, took place a few (probably about six) months before that, the date of the Nativity can also in this way be approximately determined. This view, as is well known, was strongly insisted on by Greswell; but I must confess it seems to me at best very doubtful. In a note on the place in the Speaker's Commentary Prof. Westcott remarks, "The form of expression makes it precarious to insist on the phrase as itself defining this coincidence" (i.e., between the expiration of the forty-six years and the date of our Lord's visit). To me there seems to be a still more serious difficulty in accepting this interpretation. It is perfectly true that Josephus (Ant., xx. 9, 7) speaks of the temple (rò iepòv) as not having been finished until the year before the Jewish war, which would correspond to our A.D. 65. But the word in John ii. 20 is vaòs, for which the revisers have been careful to give the marginal rendering sanctuary, and which hardly be applied to any outer courts or buildings. Now the sanctuary, or vaòs, Josephus states (Ant., xv. 11, 6), was built by the priests in a year and six months, the cloisters and outer enclosures occupying eight years more. The completion of which he afterwards speaks relates, therefore, to additional and adjacent buildings, and can hardly have any reference to the sanctuary. Of course, I am throwing the whole expression back into the state in which Origen and others found it so difficult, nor can I suggest any more satisfactory interpretation of the forty-six years, which, as Eusebius remarks, can hardly refer to the temple as built by Zerubbabel. It is possible that the sanctuary may have undergone later repair or restoration, of which, having no account, we cannot assign the time of completion, and that the Jews regarded this as a part of the actual building to be reckoned in its whole duration; but, however that be, I think it will be allowed

can

that Greswell's interpretation is far less acceptable than he thought it, and that we can derive no positive conclusion concerning the date of the Nativity from this passage in St. John's Gospel. That being so, the other considerations which have been brought forward seem to me to make it most probable that the true date of the birth of Christ was B.C. 2, whilst that of the first Easter was A D. 33. W. T. LYNN. Blackheath.

MEMORIALS TO SERVANTS (6th S. ix. 378; x. 46, 194, 295, 430).—I lately met with an epitaph copied from the cloisters of Westminster Abbey, which affords an early example (noticeable for more reasons than one) of this class of memorial. The name of the person whom it commemorates is not found in Col. Chester's Registers of Westm. Abbey. The epitaph exists in a volume of observations made by a Danish physician, Francis Reenberg, M.D., during a visit to England in 1679, which is among the MSS. in the Royal Library at Copenhagen, New Royal Collection, 4to. No. 377:"With diligence and care most exemplary Did William Lorentz serve a prebendary, And for his pains, now past before, not lost, Gain'd this remembrance att his master's cost. "O read these lines again; you 'l seldom find A servant faithfull and his master kind. Short hand he wrot; his flower in prime did fade, An hasty dead [death ?] short hand of him had [hath ?] made.

"Well could he number, and well measure land;
Thus does he now the place whereon you stand,
Wherein he lyes; so geometricall

Art maketh some, but so will nature all.
Obiit 28 Decembr. 1621, Etat. suæ 29."
W. D. MACRAY.

one can judge, described a sad colour, and was applied to various shades both of grey and brown. That chough and jackdaw were practically synonymous may be inferred from Holland also. In his translation of Pliny, x. 29 (vol i. p. 285), we find: -

"And yet in the neighbor quarters of the Insubrians neere adjoining, ye shall have infinite and innumerable flockes and flights of choughes and jack dawes (gracculorum monedularumque)."

Here gracculus is the chough and monedula the jackdaw; but in xvii. 14 (vol. i. p. 516), where the Latin has only monedula, the translator renders,

"It is said moreover, that the Chough or Daw hath given occasion hereof by laying up for store seeds and other fruits in crevises and holes of trees, which afterwards sprouted and grew."

If monedula, therefore, can be rendered in one passage by "jackdaw" and in another by "chough or daw," it is not too much to assume that in the mind of the translator, who was a physician at Coventry in Shakespeare's own county, the chough and jackdaw were the same bird.

W. ALDIS WRIGHT.

[A rhyme current in Yorkshire not many years ago was "Russet-colour'd dun,

Ugliest colour under th' sun."

from a justice of the peace) whenever it was suspected that persons or things were unlawfully concealed in any of the fifteen houses.

As to its antiquity, or how it became invested with authority, these points I do not pretend to determine. It is supposed to have been made use of by the officer who presided over the market (which is now discontinued) as a badge of authority; but this appears to be only a conjecture. I am under the impression that a similar dumb borsholder is in existence somewhere in Cumberland. W. JAS. DRAY.

Wateringbury, Kent.

In Hasted's Kent (1782), vol. ii. p. 284, there is an engraving of the Dumb Borsholder of Chart to which MR. BONE refers, and in vol. ix. of the Journal of the Archæological Association, Pp. 405-7, will be found some remarks upon the Dumb Borsholder of Ey horne. In "N. & Q.," 6th S. ii. 107, 235, the derivation of the word borsG. F. R. B. holder is discussed.

CANNIBALISM (6th S. x. 409). "Brasilienses eos, quos in bello capiunt, senes præsertim, statim comedunt reliquos vinciunt." Then comes the account of their feeding and nourishing the rest with all manner of luxuries until their turn comes,

--

MACE AT WATERINGBURY, KENT (6th S. x. 446). I beg to offer some further information respecting the "Dumb Borsholder" (pronounced borz-holder), referred to by your correspondent MR. BONE. In the vill or borough of Pizein Well, in the parish of Wateringbury, of which it forms the western division, the "Dumb Borsholder of Chart" (as he is called) formerly claimed liberty over fifteen houses of that precinct, each of which was obliged to pay to the keeper of this borsholder one penny yearly. This "Dumb Borsholder" was always the first called at the court leet holden for the hundred of Twyford, and on these occasions his keeper (who was yearly appointed by this court) held him up in compliance with the call, with a neckcloth or handkerchief put through an iron ring fixed in his top, and answered for him. This call and appearance of the Borsholder of Chart have, with the court leet, been discontinued for about one hundred and forty years past. The Borsholder was afterwards put in at the quarter sessions, claiming liberty over the whole parish. He is a sort of club, of a blackish wood, three feet long, with an iron ring on the top, and a smaller ring, originally one of four, at the bottom, where the circumference of the club increases. At the bottom is fixed a square iron spike, four and a half inches in length, to fix the club into the ground or to break open a door. For this latter purpose it was used (without a warrant

follows: "Sunt et alii sylvestres, atque montani homines, qui cum his qui in domibus habitant, continenter bella gerunt, eisdemque se sceleribus, et eadem immanitate contaminant” (Osorius, 1. ii., ap. Beyerlinck, Theatr. Vit. Hum., t. ii. C. p. 102, Venet. 1707). ED. MARSHALL.

MARMONTEL (6th S. x. 409).—See the Memoirs of Jean François Marmontel, published at Boston by Houghton, Osgood & Co., 1878, and containing a critical and biographical essay by Mr. W. D. Howells; and the article by Francis Jeffrey in the Edinburgh Review for January, 1806, vol. vii. PP. 358-387. G. F. R. B.

Lady Jane Grey never was queen; it was, as Hume LADY JANE GREY (6th S. x. 409).-Practically calls it, a "vain pageantry of wearing a crown during ten days." There was not time to have prepared at the Tower Mint the requisite dies.

Haverstock Hill.

C. A. WARD.

HISTORICAL TREES (6th S. x. 127, 394). · Another interesting account of old trees may be found in the September number of the Antiquary (vol. x. pp. 94, et seq.) from the pen of Mr. William Brailsford. While on this subject, may I ask for information respecting an old filbert tree which stands within the four walls-all, I believe, that now remains-of Godstow Nunnery? For a great number of years this tree has never been known to bear fruit, as, although nuts may be found there

Christopher Kenn, of Kenn=Florence, dau. of Stallenge. Christopher died in 1593, and Dame Florence, his widow, then married Sir Nicholas Stalling, Knt., who was 66 gentleman-usher dayly waiter of our late Sovereign of famous memory Queen Elizabeth and afterwards to our dread Sovereign Lord King James," as a mural slab in Kenn Church tells us. We should surmise that this Sir Nicholas Stalling was one of Florence's kinsmen, as she was a daughter of a Stallenge. According to the aforesaid mural tablet Sir Nicholas died on Jan. 10, 1605, but according to the registers, on Jan. 20; 1603-anyhow Dame Florence survived him, and on the happening of the disastrous floods in January, 1607, caused by the sea overflowing the sea banks or walls, distinguished herself highly by her well-timed and kindly assistance. I cannot help quoting from a tract of 1607, entitled More strange Newes of wonderfull accidents hapning by the late overflowings of Waters in Somersetshire,

&c., to show her benevolent spirit:

"The parish of Ken is now [as the Sea termed is] almost out of Kenning: In this parish stands a faire large building, belonging to the Lady Stallenge, who beholding the sea readie to give an assault upon the towne, and all her poore neighbors in danger of drowning, did not presently provide for the safety of her selfe and family onely by trusting to the strength and height of the house which was able to defend her: but out of a true compassion and noble spirit sent for so many of the inhabitants [to a great number] as with convenience could escape and get in for whom shee caused her owne servaunts to provide such victuals, as in such a place so distressed and besieged by so mercilesse an Enemy could be gotten. Shee was unto them a good Nurse, and a good Land-lady: she feasted her tennants so well that they got their lives by it: when everie eye stoode drowned in teares [as the houses of the towne did in waters] her comfortable speeches wiped them of: much of her poore neighbors sorrowe went into her owne bosome to ease them of it, so that if they nowe enjoy anything the glory of that worke must be set downe with her Name. The great horses [in this terrible battaile] were brought into the Hall of the house, and there stood above the middle a long time in water, and so were fedde with such provision as they coulde come by."

WINDSBRAUT (6th S. ix. 369, 415).-There are a good many Braus in this part of the world-the Maritime Alps. All are open to the winds of all corners, and I fancy that brausen to storm, and bruire, have the same meaning. We have between Nice and Sospel, Le Gros Braus, about four thousand feet above the sea, one of the most blasty places and passes in the world; between Sospel and Giandala, Turin Road, we have Cal de Brouis, less high, but quite as stormy; then there are Braus de la Frema, near St. Martin Lantosque, a peak fully exposed to all western and northern blasts, whose eastern flank is covered with Edelweiss; and Braus, or Raus, with other high mountains all open to every blast and storm. The lastmentioned pass I crossed with two young friends and a guide on April 27, 1879, and we had to hold to each other not to be blown off. The real meaning of braus or braut seems, therefore, to storm, to blast. In Franconia they call a Windsbraut á certain sudden whirlwind that carries off hay and cut corn all about and high into the air.

Mentone.

GEO. A. MULLER.

POLO (6th S. x. 388). The following_extract is taken from an article on "Games on Horseback:

Polo and Tent-Pegging," which is to be found in Chambers's Journal, 1876, p. 492 :—

four years ago, when the officers of the 9th Lancers "Polo appears to have been first played in England (who had learned it in India) introduced it at Woolwich, and engaged-perhaps indoctrinated the officers of the Oxford Blues, or Royal Horse Guards Blue, in a contest. In the summer months of the next three years, the younger officers in other regiments took up the I may, perhaps, add that, according to the Globe duced into America by Mr. James Gordon Bennett Encyclopædia (1879), vol. v. p. 162, it was introG. F. R. B.

game.'

in 1876.

AUTHOR OF BIOGRAPHY WANTED (6th S. x. 389).-The nominal author of the very indifferent volume indicated was said to be "a Mr. Marshall, residing near Epsom." The book was printed in 1788, and was deservedly severely criticized. Ten years later the same publisher brought out a second work, entitled Literary Memoirs of Living Authors (London, 2 vols., 8vo., Faulder, 1798). This was said to be edited by the Rev. David Rivers, of Highgate. What is known about these two works is stated in "N. & Q," 5th S. x. 30. Who Mr. Marshall was, and, indeed, whether there really was such a person, appear to be open questions; any fresh information would be very welcome. In reference to these books it may be as well to refer to the curious volume of biographies published by Prof Reuss, of Göttingen, in 1791, Das Gelehrte England, and also to the New Catalogue of Living English Authors, printed for C. Clarke, 1799. Of this I believe only the